Gotta Love 'Em

This week was quite busy for me with family coming to visit and all. My brother came Tuesday night and we went out for an early birthday dinner. He came down because his little girl had to go to the hospital to get checked to see if she had to have surgery because of kidney problems. Wednesday, my birthday, Clay sent a huge bouquet of flowers to school! My cooperating teacher brought it in to class before class and so all my student sang happy birthday to me! The flowers were absolutely gorgeous!!! There was an assortment of pink and purple roses, carnations, tulips, and orchids! I think my favorite flower is now an orchid! :) So I went to the hospital to meet up with my niece and brother for a minute. Turns out she was fine and didn't have to have surgery! Good! So my brother and I just walked around the Gateway for a while then I headed home. I had a couple of visitors who came and brought me presents :) This lady in the Relief Society presidency came and brought me something out of no where. I was completely surprised and feel so grateful for people like that that I hardly know, but yet we have the bond of sisterhood! Another friend of mine, Kelsie, was so great to cook a cake for me and some other fun stuff! I wasn't feeling well later on in the night so I stayed home and watched the Jazz game and unfortunately they lost and ended their winning streak. Anyway, good birthday! Thursday, my brother Jared and Dad came and stayed with me. We went out to the Mayan for dinner. They left for Provo Friday and went to the Draper Temple Open House and then went on the BYU campus because Jared is going there this summer semester. I hitched a ride with my friend Jacobie and met up with them. We shopped the rest of the afternoon and headed to the Hotel. Saturday we looked for housing for Jared and did some more shopping! It was so great to just be able to hang with them! Too bad the Jazz lost again to the Heat in 3 OT's :( Boo. Anyway, I had a great week though! I feel bad because Clay doesn't have family or anyone in Tacoma to really go see but I get to fly back up there in less than a month! I can't wait to finish student teaching, although it's been a positive experience, I'm ready for it to be done. Those of you in Rexburg . . . see you in a month!

YEAH for Melissa!!!

WHAT A COMEBACK!!! So I just changed the channel to watch Dancing With the Stars and had no idea Melissa was taking Nancy O'Dell's spot! What's so cool is that they didn't even start training until just this last Saturday and the score they got was a 23 out of 30 - better than half them there! Anyway, I'm super excited that Melissa has pulled through the whole heart break-up from The Bachelor, Jason, and is going to have great cardiovascular workouts, creating lots of endorphins, making her twice as happy as she was with Jason :) There's my health input for ya! I was just excited for this so I thought I'd post it. Tell me what you all think about it!

Survivor!

To most of you, this might just be a lame post. Ha ha but this is my life currently! I had to do Parent-Teacher Conferences these last two days at the High School. I was freaking out afraid of saying the wrong thing, having furious parents, and all of everything else that could go wrong. Well for the first day of conferences, my cooperating teacher was going to be about an hour late so I had to start it all on my own - AHHH! I suppose to make this a short post, it really wasn't all that bad as I had thought it to be! I'm surprised that I have learned all my students' names and called them by it when they came to my table - which did impress some of their parents :) yay! There were no mad parents, just concerned that their student was failing Health class - of ALL classes! I don't want to see anyone fail in there so I'm basically pretty easy going. Anyway, it actually was very nice talking to the parents and seeing how the students interact with their parents. Some of them were quiet like in class, others it brought out their personality more, and some were just disrespectful to their parents which shows me they are the same at home as they are in class. SO . . . overall, I would have to say that I enjoyed Parent-Teacher Conference! I only have 3 more weeks of teaching and then 1 more week to go back to observing! I'm almost there! I'm super excited to be back with Clay and can't wait for that time!!! Sorry if I bored you with that post, but just lettin' ya know the updates :) Chow!

The Background :)

Just a quickie explanation for the background that I chose :) I've been excited for the Jazz to finally be getting healthy and getting everyone back (Boozer is back in a week!) and after they beat the two top teams of the NBA - Lakers and Celtics - I figured that the Jazz pretty much rock! I haven't gone to a game yet this season but I have to since I live there! ha ha But I thought I'd support them with my blog background! YEAH! Also, March Madness is in a week so go Duke! I haven't kept up much with the NCAA but I love watching any basketball! SO . . . go JAZZ!

Half-Way Mark Weekend

I thought the time would never come when I was going to finally see Clay up in Washington! Well the weekend was so surreal! It went by slow but when I got home it seemed like it never happened. When I first came off the plane and saw Clay, it felt like butterflies all over again right before we got married - I was shaking non-stop! We stayed across the harbor on another island from Tacoma called Gig Harbor at a Bed and Breakfast called the Maritime Inn (I highly recommend the place) for a couple nights. This was our room below - a little small, but perfect (not like a regular hotel room ya know)!

We just relaxed the rest of Friday night which was so nice to finally be back with Clay. Saturday morning (Valentine's Day) we took a walk around the town along the boardwalk and saw all the boats and looked out across part of Puget Sound which was absolutely beautiful!

Later on that morning we took a drive around the town and basically through the forest with all the towering trees (hello, it's Washington! ha ha) and grabbed some lunch. So Clay told me that whatever else we did we just had to be done before 2:00. So that time came and we took a walk down the road and we walked up to this place called Jax Salon. We got in there, Clay checked in and this lady brought us champagne glasses with Sparkling Cider. Clay surprised me with an afternoon at the SPA!!!

We both started out with pedicures, had a dish with strawberries and chocolates, and got the best foot scrub and massage! After that, we got to take a hot steam shower. The shower head was like 12'' in diameter and there was steam coming out of a hole in the wall! It was just amazing :) Below is just an example that I found on the internet - Clay and I want to get ourselves one for this next Christmas!

We then got to get into those awesome white robes and white, soft slippers and head off to the massage room. Clay wasn't so sure about this part but I assured him he wouldn't look back after getting one and he'd look forward to getting another one! It was an hour massage with hot rocks and hot towels - SPECTACULAR! So that pretty much ended our spa time but it was definitely well spent and was the best Valentine's present! Kudos Clay :) Later that night we went to an Italian Restaurant which was pretty good and enjoyed the night out. Sunday we checked out of our place and headed off to Clay's church. Boy, was it ever good to be at church with Clay - it's been hard to go to church each time without Clay and then see all these couples. I met Clay's housemates when we got back from church and just chilled the rest of the Sunday afternoon.

Monday, Clay first took me to the military base that he works on, Fort Lewis, and we drove around seeing where he worked, etc. It was neat to know earlier that my mom first moved there on the base when she first came to America from Germany and her sister was born in the old hospital there that you see above. Below is the building that Clay works in!

Later that morning we headed off to Seattle and walked around probably like 10 miles - at least it sure seemed like that!

We parked right by Pikes Place and walked around there and then down on the boardwalk along all the piers. We went to all the big department stores and decided to check the Space Needle out. Well, it ended up being more pricey than what we had thought it was, so we figured that we'd skip out on it since it's kind of like the ride at Sea World that takes you up to the top to overlook the park.

Anyway, well we really had nothing else to do since we hadn't made plans so we headed off to the airport. It was the hardest to leave Clay behind me and go through security, but obviously it had to happen so off we split and now 7 more weeks until we see each other again! It still stinks not seeing him like it was when he first left, but we're both doing great in our internships and can't wait to be done and be back together! It's so crazy to think about the year ahead of us because we're graduating in July and who knows where we'll be by the end of the year! Here's to the year ahead . . . !

Love for the Small and Simple Things

So this was really random in some ways. I'll admit I'm a fan of David Archuleta and love his voice. I've really started to listen to this song of his called "To be with you" and it started to make more sense tonight. I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon and she asked me how I knew it was right to marry Clay. After listening to this song, it seems to explain a lot of it and how I felt going through everything and getting all my answers, although they were small and simple, and not huge like I was looking for because it was such a huge decision. Who wouldn't expect a huge answer for a huge decision? Anyway, we were talking about the Temple and how amazing it is. So with this song too, I can't imagine not being sealed for eternity to Clay and I know that Heavenly Father answered all my prayers and blessed me with the best husband in the world for me. I am so grateful so I wanted to share my love for this song with all of you! I didn't know how to get the youtube video in a post so here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALOsa6nOCg0 Check it out!

Seattle Here I Come!

It's now been 2 weeks since Clay has left and fortunately I have been surviving! It does still stink that he's not here but we talk on the phone every night like we were dating again. ha ha I love it though because we really focus on each other and talk about everything! So we've been trying to find a time where I could come up to see him and it was basically Valentine's weekend that looked the best for me because I didn't have school that next Monday (President's Day I believe) and it was kind of a half mark of when he left to when I'd be up there to drive back with him. So I've been trying to find great flights and Southwest was the only 'cheap' one. I love Priceline naming your own price, but I wanted specific times so I could be with him as much as possible so yes, Southwest was the cheapest at $205. Well we decided to wait and see if it would get less but I was getting antsy. Anyway, I came home the other day and jumped on here to see what the prices were and surprise, surprise! Southwest had a special 3 day sale to Seattle!!! How crazy is that!? The tickets were 50% off so it ended up taking about $30 off though. Hmmm, I thought to myself that I should check Priceline ONE more time. I couldn't believe my eyes - they jumped down like $80! I quickly went through the process of about to buy them and it showed that there were only 3 more tickets at that price. Shoot, well we didn't have money in our account yet from Clay's paychecks so I transferred some from another one and quickly bought them! So it's official! I am going to Seattle for Valentine's Day weekend!!!!!! What a blessing it was to get those tickets at the price that I did - Heavenly Father must really want me to be with my husband to celebrate our birthdays, Valentine's Day, and kind of a late Anniversary romantic getaway :) Clay booked a few nights at a Bed and Breakfast place too so I'm super stoked about it all!!!

Clay just sent me this picture today of him at work - I believe it was his first day at work! He's such a hottie! But this is great Tacoma (technically Fort Lewis on the Military Base) with the overcast skies 24/7 basically. He says a good day for everyone there is when it's not raining - ha, not my idea of a good day! He's doing great though getting right into the swing of things. I'm so proud of him - he's such a hard worker!

On another note, I started teaching this week! I really don't have bad kids at all thank goodness! I have 4 Health classes, 1 swimming and 1 lifetime sports class! It's great though because I have all my classes for the first 3 periods and then lunch and my prep hour so I'm done by 12:08 every day!!! I think that's what makes this teaching so great! haha Just on a side note and totally random - I love listening to Pandora Radio on the internet (pandora.com for all you who don't know about it) and I just decided to add a Disney station to it. I'm such a nerd but I absolutely LOVE it! It has songs from Disney movies, shows on Disney channel, music from Disney stars and teen pop stars - yeah I admit to liking that type of music :) You should check it out!!! Anyway, I'll keep ya updated on my stories :) But until then . . . TTFN!